With today’s distributed workforces, it can be difficult to identify where inefficiencies are occurring. In a traditional office setup, you could easily see who was at their desk working and who wasn’t – but with so many employees working remotely, that’s no longer possible.

Workplace management requires a clear picture of an organization’s workforce and their skills – that’s where workplace analytics comes in. With workplace analytics, companies can make better decisions to retain existing talent and improve performance. 

Information from the platforms and software that we use every day can provide powerful insights into the workforce. Let’s take a closer look what workplace analytics are and how they can help you optimize your hybrid work strategy.

What Is Workplace Analytics?

Workplace analytics are tools that make it easier to measure and assess your organization and its workers. Access to the right tools and software provides a secure and cost-effective way for workforce managers to track data.

The insight this tracking provides gives leaders a meaningful way to engage with the workforce and solve common problems associated with their duties. Analytics uses data from different platforms to gain insight into:

• Employee productivity and performance
• Workforce effectiveness
• Training opportunities
• Management needs

With workforce analytics, HR and IT leaders can identify organizational patterns and trends to help them make data-driven decisions. The availability of actionable insights provides a transformative environment for the entire workforce.

Types of Workplace Analytics: Predictive V. Prescriptive 

With so many companies now embracing hybrid work, platforms for video-conferencing, chat, and file-sharing are a must. The cloud platforms we use to work collaboratively can provide a wealth of data, such as how much time people spend on calls, or how frequently meetings are canceled or rescheduled. 

These insights can be used for prescriptive and predictive analytics:

• Predictive Analytics: In this analysis, HR data is aggregated to forecast future outcomes at your organization. Information about where, how, and when people are working can help you plan for the future, such as focusing on retention or predicting turnover rates.
• Prescriptive Analytics: This tool moves a step past predictions and offers recommendations based on the data. For example, prescriptive analytics can help HR teams identify steps to increase employee satisfaction, improve the workplace experience, or provide training and resources to prevent burnout.

Both types of workforce analytics offer important advantages to decision-makers who want to improve their talent pools. Businesses can effectively train and retain the best talent by leveraging predictive and prescriptive analytics.

What Types of Applications Are Used in Workplace Analytics?

Workforce analytics is an ongoing process that some leaders may not be equipped to handle fully. Luckily, a variety of applications offer advanced workforce analytics capabilities with little overhead to the end-user:

1. Zoom 

Zoom’s video conferencing platform allows users to access dashboard statistics and export usage data as a CSV file.

Pros: Zoom analytics gathers data including:

• The number of meetings hosted
• The number of participants in meetings and how many messages they sent
• Call quality feedback
• User locations and devices

Cons: Analytics are only available to customers with Zoom Business, Education, or API Plans.

2. Slack

Slack offers direct messaging, private chat groups, and channels to make communication easier across the organization and cut down on email. Slack’s analytics dashboard collects data such on:

• Active users
• Messages sent
• Files uploaded
• Calls and huddles
• Searches
• Changes in membership

Pros: Users report that the analytics dashboard is simple to navigate and it’s easy to export.

Cons: Not all insights are available across all types of Slack plans. And because Slack is primarily a messaging platform, it may not give you much substantive insight into employee performance.

3. Microsoft

Many companies use Microsoft Office 365 for email, video meetings, file storage, and sharing. Microsoft offers Viva Insights as an add-on to Office 365 enterprise plans.

Pros: For companies that regularly work in Office 365 apps like Outlook, Excel, and Teams, Viva Insights offers a wealth of data on how people are communicating and collaborating.

Cons: You’ll need to pay extra to add the complete set of reporting tools to your existing plan. If your workers are using other platforms like Zoom, certain insights like Teams usage data may not be helpful. 

Utilizing Workplace Analytics Software

We know that companies do their best work when their people feel productive and supported – that’s where Robin comes in. 

With powerful workplace analytics and reporting features, Robin’s office management software helps HR teams understand when, where, and how employees are working best. To learn more, schedule a demo today.

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